Coagula

Coagula is a character from DC Comics' Doom Patrol series, the first transgender superhero by the publisher. Created by Rachel Pollack in response to other poorly written trans comic characters, the lesbian Coagula obtained her powers&mdash;to coagulate and dissolve material&mdash;from having sex with Doom Patrol member, Rebis. An actively-written character from September 1993 through February 1995, Coagula has cameoed in other comics as recently as 2022.

Character
Coagula is a transgender lesbian, former prostitute and programmer. After having sex with former Doom Patrol member Rebis ("an alchemical hermaphrodite"), Coagula gained "alchemical powers […] the power to dissolve things on the one hand and coagulate them on the other hand". She tried to join the Justice League, but "it's implied that she was rejected in part for being an out transgender lesbian activist"; she instead joined the Doom Patrol. Coagula first appears in issue 70&mdash;"The Laughing Game"&mdash;defeating The Codpiece, a spurned man-turned-villain with a multifunctional, mechanical codpiece. After her introduction in the next few issues, Coagula takes center stage in "The Teiresias Wars", a five-part story combining "Greek mythology with [Pollack's] twisted retelling of the Tower of Babel".

The character last featured in  In DC Pride 2022, Coagula cameoed in the stories "Super Pride" and "Up at Bat".

Development
After creating the trans character Wanda Mann for The Sandman, Neil Gaiman solicited feedback from his friend, Rachel Pollack. She felt Gaiman had poorly written Mann, and said "she would remedy that by putting her own trans character, Coagula, into Doom Patrol. (In 2023, Gaiman admitted he would write Mann differently if creating the comic contemporaneously.)  Coagula became comics' first transgender superheroine.

The synergy of Coagula's name and powers are derived from the Latin phrase. Pollack wrote Coagula's past to include prostitution and programming because those were the most-common professions for trans women in the early-to-mid 1990s. Pollack coopted Coagula's real name (Kate Godwin) from Kate Bornstein and Chelsea Goodwin. The Coagula character allowed Pollack to expose readers to transgender topics before being killed off, garnering positive feedback from readers who finally saw themselves represented in the pages of comics.

Legacy
As of October 2015, Coagula was DC Comics' only transgender superhero, and had not yet been reused or reprinted since its original run. DC's first transgender superhero on television was Nia Nal (played by Nicole Maines) who premiered in Supergirl on October 14, 2018. In 2024, DC announced a 96-page one-shot tribute to Pollack under the DC Pride banner (DC Pride: A Celebration of Rachel Pollack); scheduled for Pride Month, it will include a reprinting of "The Laughing Game".